LPT1 on XP Pro

I have a IBM Thinkpad 600e with XP Pro on it. I am trying to write to a smartcard from the lpt1 port through a standard cable M25 to F25 and it won’t work. If I hook the port up to my printer it prints fine but anything else it doesn’t respond. When I use it on my old laptop with Win 98 it lets me write to it with no problem. I read a lot of things and tried all kinds of stuff and nothing works yet.